Comics from Chicago: Daystar and Revenger
Daystar offers readers a tour of the misery and mania that sentience has inflicted after an encounter with a cosmic meteorite. Plus, other discoveries from a recent trip to Chicago.
This won’t be a revelation for some of you, but next time you're in an unfamiliar place, see what the local comic store has on offer. You may be in for a pleasant surprise...
I spent the weekend in Chicago, and while I wasn’t there for any comics-related reasons, it still became a highlight of the trip. During my downtime, I went looking for one comic shop, found two, and took home something from each.
My first stop was Challengers Comics and Conversation, where I found myself drawn to the section for local talent. The one that caught my eye was Daystar, a 100-page, perfect-bound, 6x8 comic by Aaron Losty and Matt Emmons, the latter of whom I’m somewhat familiar with from projects like Dagger, Dagger.
Daystar Infects Animals With Cosmic Horror
Daystar is about animals living in and around the USS Hamlet, a ship that apparently ran aground. These were normal animals – rats, bunnies, and the like – until a meteor crashed into the vessel, mutating many of them physically and granting them all human-like sentience.
In the story’s prologue, Daystar introduces readers to a rat couple who seem to exist in a state of blissful non-sentience until one of them is taken by a bird of prey. The reaction from the surviving rat is barely noticeable.
Cut to chapter 1, after the meteor has fallen. That same surviving rat, now going by the name Mesmo, is stricken with PTSD-like nightmares about the bird’s attack and the loss of his love, whom he still yearns for despite having taken another mate who is heavy with children.
